Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

lighting is something that I found in the past few years since moving from California to New York, and it's really just streamline my work as I shoot with a lot of different Phil mediums as well is digital. So I'm going to be sharing with you guys some of my favorite film mediums today and just how I might workflow with constant light. I'm gonna start off just with a little bit of my background. I started fashion photography in 2010 but when I say fashion photography, it was really just learning how to work with the model I stopped before. In 2010. I was doing a lot of landscape photography. I have my bachelors and hospitality enters a management, which is completely different from photography. So whenever I met my husband, who you guys will mean the little while, he started teaching me photography, and we started doing landscapes and traveling, and I really just fell in love with the camera. So in 2010 1 of my friends started modeling, and I really I started work. Vic was really into ...

photography while he was in school, and he was doing landscapes. He was doing weddings and sports. We lived in San Diego, and we live close to the Chargers. So he was doing a lot of sports photography and started teaching me how to use my camera. And through that I started shooting my friend Ashley and just really fell in love with the creativity of fashion photography, although I didn't know really what that intel so himself tall. I started testing with her and then threw her. I started shooting some of her friends and really grew it through that I have learned everything go online. I grew up in North Carolina and a really small town, so there wasn't much fashion where I'm from. I did take fashion courses whenever I was in school. It really wanted to get into fashion but didn't know. I didn't think I'd ever live in a big city or know what where that would leave me. So it was really cool to be able to incorporate fashion and does something I was really passionate about with photography. So I started developing my style by using a lot of different lighting techniques. I started off using strobes. I used speed, life and then went toe beauty dishes and then later in my career or the first year was starting. I started shooting with more natural light, really love the softness of it. I loved just how beautiful it Woz and shooting get a load at the filled and being able to create a dreamy portrait. So I really fell in love with that. I threw my career, have always been challenging. I've always a big part of my career, is just challenging myself. So starting in California and San Diego, there's a little bit of a fashion community there, which is really great, and that's what helps me get started. I There were a couple of schools that had fashion programs when I was living in San Diego, and what really helped me was going to the schools, and I would go and go find out about the fashion programs they had going on there, and at the end of the year, they would always have fashion shows in different events. So I would go to those events and try to get behind the scenes and meet with those student designers, and through that I was able to start building my portfolio by working with these students that had these amazing collections that they would showcase of the end of the year, and you did photographers to shoot them. So that's something I always encouraging my workshops with with everyone that comes whenever they're looking for designers or the first stats. I think that's an amazing step that really helped my career. So with challenging myself, I was about three hours from L. A. So I really started going to L. A. Whenever I could finding more model agencies there, I started doing a lot of celebrities. I started reaching out to magazines over there and learning how to work with different people. Shooting a model is much different than shooting a celebrity, because with celebrities, it's very quick, very quick turnaround. I was shooting for magazines. They're generally 4 to 5 looks and maybe 4 to 5 hours. Maybe the celebrities an hour late. So it pushes the time in so very quick and learning how to get the shot. Know what lighting needed to be done during that time? So I learned in L. A really how toe I work with clients, which shifted really well. Once I moved to New York, I started networking with different talent over there. And about a couple years into my career, the 1st 2 years I was working for Kaiser permanent say it was a research. I was doing research for Medicare, and then on the weekends I would shoot. So So it was very much shooting on the weekends, going home after work, working 9 to 5 and going home and retouching. So that was my shift in tow photography. So after about after a couple years of that, I really wanted to be and be closer in L. A. It wasn't really sure about living in L. A. So I moved to Orange County to be a little bit closer, and I lived there for a year and just as much as I could, I'd be going into L. A still learning my stuff, developing my style, trying different techniques out. I encourage everyone just to try different techniques and because I think that the more passion and the about your lighting and about your work, the better your photos are going to be. So I definitely encourage people to try different techniques. Try different cameras or lenses until we find something that you really enjoyed that you're passionate about, so I moved to New York. It's been three years since I've lived here, and it's been just everything just grow gone so fast since I've moved here and everything that I learned in San Diego and L. A has really benefited me here, living in L. A. I shot a lot of natural light. I shot a lot of outdoors most of the time because if you guys were familiar with California, it's beautiful weather all the time, and you don't have toe really worry about shooting too much in studio. So I really only shot studio with clients, but I didn't really had it. Found my style with it. It was a bit more commercial and getting what the client wanted. So when I moved to New York, it was really about learning my style in studio, And that's what I'm going to be teaching you guys today. So I started doing a lot of constantly, and the reason I like that is because I could still get that dreamy effect and shoot at lower apertures and mixed mixed natural light in it as turning times as well. So be sure you guys got today so just a little bit more about my background. These were some of my early images. When I was shooting on San Diego, I shot a lot with the Canon 85 1.2. That's still one of my favorite lenses, so that's a kind of a go to lens. I love it just because it gives that really dreamy effect. And I love it with on the constant light or whenever I'm shooting outdoors. These were some of my early images right when I moved to New York. I have Alex London. She's going to be styling today, but she's an amazing designer. This was one of the first shoots that we did together, and I have today my seamless backdrop that I designed with seamless photo over in Ireland. So I used that pretty often as well. These were both done with the constant light. I'll be showing you today with Westcott Sky Lux and Rapid Box, kind of in a darker environ environment to give a little bit of a more moody light. And this was when I was still learning what I liked in ST beyond developing my style, and I really found that I loved constantly because I could still shoot it a lower aperture and get kind of a dreamy image and bring what I was doing outside into the studio. I also love constant light because I am able to mix it with all of my films. So I should a lot of film and, um, one of my one of the girls I work with a lot of Melanie Martinez. She's a musician, and she is really passionate about it as well. So it's so fun to work with her because she get so excited about the Polaroids. So they were done with the land camera that I'll be showing you guys today as well as Impossible Project, using both using constant light. And this was one of my first campaigns wouldn't. So I moved to New York for Claire Pettibone. She's an amazing bridal designer, and we did this using I think we were using 45 West Cut Sky Lux is that we had today as well as the scrim. So we had No, this was done in a studio that had no natural light coming in at all, but we were able to kind of mimic that artificially through the constant light in creating a beautiful effect, and these were a couple of images from this year on the left one was an out take for a view magazine. I was doing a feature with New York model management, and that's just using natural light. This year, I've started using the Sony A. Seven are two pretty often, which I'll be using today is my digital camera. I love it because it's super lightweight and I'll show you guys a little bit more of that later. But on the super lightweight, I have clients that are two or three days where we're shooting between 15 to 40 looks a day, so it's very works really well. It's very sharp. It's a really nice camera. And then the right one was mixing the sky locks with window light, which was great as well. So a few helpful keys that have really helped me with through my career and through the years that I think would help help you guys as well. Um, self motivation. I like I mentioned earlier. I really love what ideo. So I'm motivated by it. Whenever I started, I did. I was doing landscapes. I did try some bridal photography. I even tried pets. I did a lot of different things, which was great because I was learning and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do. But as soon as I started shooting on my friend, that's when I really just fell in love with fashion and wanted Teoh really go into that and not saying that in a way where that that's all I dio. I have clients that are very commercial and all kinds of different clients, which is great. But whenever I have time, I really love doing fashion and I love I, but I appreciate all of my clients do so, but But I'm very self motivated. I work pretty long hours, but I love it. It doesn't feel like work. So that's been something that's been really helpful in my career. Time management as well, learning. I think it's learning when to say yes, learning when to say no. Like I said in the beginning, I was doing all kinds of different things all the time, so it was very busy and and I was saying yes to the some of the wrong things because I thought I might enjoy. But I think that just learning what was beneficial, what's not what some I think it's what can help you build your portfolio or what you might already have on your portfolio and benefits with the client is if it's worth what their budget is, or if they're going to pay you your actual rate, that kind of thing, because that goes along with some clients here in New York as well all the time. So being inspired is very Hubble. Teoh I. I'm inspired by a lot of the A lot of film photographers like Paulo Reverse E. I Love Sarah Moon and Steven Meisel I love, but I love seeing what they do. I love reading Vogue Italia. I'm looking at all the photos, and that always just really inspires me and keeps me excited about what I'm doing. I also just also models and fashion in general, so I think anything that inspires you, keeping that as a go to and even your friends having friends and inspire you as well and push you one, like I mentioned earlier, really developing your style, trying different techniques that I'll be showing you guys a lot of different cameras, and what I always encourage people to do is try a couple. Maybe you like it. Maybe you don't, but it's great to try something new, and maybe you'll find you can pull something out and add that to your work and make it. Make it your own and make add that shares the style that you're going in definitely challenging yourself so it could be with work whenever I'm teaching workshops. Sometimes people are looking for models. It's hard to find someone in their city, so I definitely encourage them toe. Maybe hire someone in the beginning and just to start building that portfolio where investing where they can and challenging themselves so that goes into investing as well. So it might be investing in a new lens that could make your portfolio portfolio a lot better or bring you to the next level or book that next quiet, which is all which is really beneficial at the beginning of every year. I start I start my year with just doing several different tests, So I do a few different creative projects, and this year they were just worked really well did two different lighting set up and something a little bit knew that I didn't have in my portfolio. And through one of them I looked. Probably 12 clients this year just threw one shoot then so many people. What? I didn't even have a stylist I had. I used my coat that I had in my closet, and I styled the model with it, and I booked some really big clients that they all come back to this one photo. So so it could just be taking that extra time and doing a shoot that you might not have in your portfolio and using that to sell yourself and sell your browned. Having a good support team, you guys will meet my team later, but I evict. My husband is very supportive and has been throughout my career. He's been there helping me and motivating me and inspiring me through these years. So that's amazing. The sherry also have a studio manager, Krista, who's been super helpful as well who you guys will meet in a little bit and then finally definitely loving. What you do is continuing toe be passionate about what you dio. I think that's the biggest, I think as a photographer going into it passionately and trying to keep that passion alive through your career because I think the most successful photographers or once that love what they dio and they're just really motivated and excited every day to be doing doing their job.